Pockets Full of Stones
by foreverwriting9
Summary: There are some things that still haunt Beckett; memories that weigh her down and drag her under. A list of things Beckett regrets doing when it comes to Castle.


There are some things that still haunt Beckett; memories that weigh her down and drag her under. She remembers them out of order, and some of them remain hazy, while others are so bright that they physically hurt her.

XXX

The tabletop is sticky beneath her fingertips, and weirdly, she's cold, despite the three layers of clothing that she's wearing. Castle sits next to her, his foot tapping slowly against the linoleum floor. Beckett can feel the heat radiating off of him, and when Raglan murmurs that _there's something about the way ceramic warms your hands_, Beckett lets her knee knock against Castle's and then come to a stop somewhere against his thigh.

She tries to tell herself that it's an accident and that she's going to move, but she never does, because she doesn't have a coffee-filled ceramic mug sitting in her hands, instead she has _Castle_.

And then there are shots and the breaking of ceramic and the sickening sound of bullets hitting flesh and then Beckett's cold again, even though Castle is still next to her, warm and _alive_.

Everything moves too fast then, right up until Castle puts his fingers to Raglan's neck and then turns to look at her, his eyes wide and his mouth tight.

She's kneeling on the grimy floor of a dimly lit diner, covered in someone else's blood, watching a small piece of Castle die.

It takes her awhile to completely forgive herself for doing that to him.

XXX

She expects herself to call Castle, so it surprises her when she sits, day after day, in her father's cabin with Castle's number half-dialed on her phone.

(She doesn't know what to do anymore.)

_Heat Rises_ doesn't do anything to help either, because within its pages is everything they could be, and it scares her when she realizes that Castle has thought _that much_ about _them_.

Beckett swallows around the lump in her throat and tries to focus on the trees outside her window.

Sometimes she swears that she hears voices coming from the woods and echoing against the dust and sorrow that lie thickly on the cabin floor. Letters and syllables bounce around together until they sound like _I love you_, _always_, and _stay _all at once, loud and chanting, until Beckett closes her eyes and falls asleep.

She hears Jim before she actually sees him.

"Katie?"

"Dad?" She doesn't turn to face him, just keeps her eyes fixed on the swaying tree branches outside.

"Are you ready to go?" Jim's voice is soft and careful, as though he's afraid that speaking in a normal tone will somehow startle her.

"I think..." Beckett trails off and twists her fingers into the fabric of her shirt. "I need more time, Dad. It's just not the right time."

He takes a couple of steps toward her, rocking back and forth on the balls of his feet. "It's never going to be a _perfect_ time, Katie, but at some point it needs to be _the _time."

Beckett half nods and turns away from the window. "I don't think I can do this anymore," she admits to the stale air of the cabin.

"What?"

"All of this," she says, and her arm sweeps over the table where _Heat Rises _sits.

"You could ask him to stop," he says, and he means so many different things that Beckett doesn't know which to address first.

"I can't," she says, and that answers everything.

XXX

She knows as soon as she walks away, tucked under Josh's arm, that Castle is staring after her like a lost puppy, and that is as cathartic as it is heartbreaking, because she knows exactly how he feels, and it's definitely not _good._

Josh talks to her, but she half listens, and it always surprises her to find that his face is blurry, as though it's in extreme soft focus. The only thing she really notices is that he's warm and smells like leather (a smell that contrasts too sharply with Castle's cologne).

Beckett tries to act like nothing has happened the next day (like it's no big deal that her boyfriend walked into the precinct and that he's not Castle), but she can tell that something's changed. Ryan and Esposito spend their quick coffee breaks with Castle, and even Montgomery takes more time out of his day to indulge Castle's off-the-wall theories.

Castle's different too. His eyes are slightly more guarded and his lips are a touch tighter than they were the day before.

Beckett wants to tell him that she's sorry, truly, genuinely, and heart-wrenchingly sorry, but she finds that she can't bring herself to form the words. (Everytime she tries all she can think about is a too bright day in the summer when all she could taste was disappointment in the air.)

XXX

There's a warmth that pools into her stomach and bubbles up the back of her throat when Castle walks into the hospital room holding a bouquet of flowers.

Beckett can count on one hand the number of times they've given each other flowers: the first bouquet was from her, handed to Castle in the precinct elevator as a magic trick, while the overwhelming sense of hope caught in her throat. The second was from him, when he stood outside her apartment door with his heart wrapped in a bow and clenched in his hands.

"Hey," he says softly, and Beckett just wants to fast forward through all of this, because it feels too awkward and wrong.

_I just never thought I'd see you again_.

The words bounce around in her head for a second before she remembers the look on his face in the cemetery as he stared down at her, the sun exploding over his shoulder, and his hands all over her body. She wishes that she had the strength to tell him that she feels the same way.

(She does love him back, but everything's so _wrong _right now, and an uncomfortable hospital bed is not the right place for her confession.)

"I hear that you tried to save me." The list of things that Beckett hates herself for doing to Castle grows longer, and she's not sure she can take it anymore. She bites the inside of her cheek and waits.

"You heard? You don't remember me tackling you?"

"No, I don't remember much of anything." She does though, and all she can hear as she stares down at her hands is the thumping of _I love you_, _I love you _in time with her healing heart. "I remember that I was on the podium, and I remember everything just going black."

"You don't remember," Castle pauses for too long, and the silence fills with everything Beckett wishes she could say to him, starting with _I'm sorry_ and _I love you too_. "The gunshot?"

"No," she says. "They say that there are some things that are better not being remembered."


End file.
